NRR Project: Frank Proffitt performs "Tom Dooley" (1940)

 

NRR Project: “Tom Dooley”

Folk tune

Performed by Frank Proffitt, vocal and banjo

Recorded 1940

2:44

First of all, go to this excellent National Recording Registry essay by Ross Hair. I can only reiterate his information and provide a personal perspective.

This timeless murder ballad was created in the wake of a true crime – the murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dula in Happy Valley, North Carolina in 1866. Everybody seems to know it; its most famous iteration was by the Kingston Trio in 1958. It sparked the Great Urban Folk Revival of the 1960s, and marked the American transition from the playing of and listening to traditional music to the ups and downs of the singer-songwriter era.

The song has inspired numerous books and examinations of its origin and development. It was first sung by Frank Proffitt to folksong collectors Anne and Frank Warner in 1937; they recorded him the following year. Frank Warner performed it himself; it wound up in John and Alan Lomax’s collection “Folk Song USA” in 1947. Once it became a smash hit, the differing generators of the song and the Trio had litigation over its publishing rights.

It’s a simple, straightforward song, instantly memorable. It recommends that its subject cry, and pities him; ironically, the real Tom Dula was a cold-blooded murderer. The Dooley of the song reckons he is doomed, resignedly. There was something romantic in his resignation. Proffitt intones the words with a flat voice, subdued, the ring of his banjo undergirds him.

There are, of course, more and variant lyrics by the score. There are lyrics in Proffitt’s version that don’t appear in the Kingston Trio’s recording.

“I’ll take down my banjo

And pick it on my knee

By this time tomorrow

It’ll be no use to me.”

It’s one of the first songs I remember. The Kingston Trio were gods in our home, right up there with Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul, and Mary and Joan Baez. We played their records incessantly, sang along in harmonies . . . for this was the era of the hootenanny! When everyone sang along. Everyone was singing together – there were the sing-ins of the civil rights protestors; there was Mitch Miller  and his Gang broadcasting “Sing Along with Mitch” (1961-1964). In fact, on TV "Hootenany" (1963-1964) bred "Shindig!" (1964-1966) and "Hullabaloo" (1965-1966).

Everybody was singing or listening to “Tom Dooley.” There were no Beatles yet. The British had not Invaded. It was all folk, everybody participated. It was very wholesome, strikingly innocent now, as most of the dirtier and more lurid authentic folk songs were cleaned up and made family-friendly for the huge American audience. A more optimistic time it was.

It was so familiar that the Smother Brothers parodied it to a T (referencing the publishing rights lawsuits, but funny even if you don’t know that), producing “Tom Crudely” on their 1961 debut album. Their alternate lyrics -- “Poor boy, you’re hung” – still kill today. It’s a testament as to how deep the song imbedded itself in our consciousness.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Roland Hayes sings ‘Were You There’.